"The Wellness Revolution", by Paul Zane Pilzer, Success From Home, August 2007.

"How To Be One of The Next Millionaires," by Paul Zane Pilzer, Your Business Magazine, April 2006. 

"A Tale of Two Industries," by Paul Zane Pilzer, Success From Home Magazine, July 2006.

"Crisis or Opportunity - The 6 Myths and Realities of Economic Opportunity," by Paul Zane Pilzer, Your Business Magazine, July 2006.

As baby boomers age they begin to desire the one thing that will allow them to continue to enjoy the wealth they have accumulated—wellness.

What good is a vacation home in the mountains if pain prevents you from skiing, hiking or walking? Or if you can’t inhale even enough oxygen to take in a cleansing breath? What good is the ability to travel if even a short walk to the beach leaves you too tired to enjoy yourself?

As baby boomers reach their 60s, wellness is becoming an investment more of our population is turning toward. Health is becoming an investment affordable to almost everyone, and the dividends are priceless.

The Sickness vs. Wellness Industry

We’ve spent years calling doctors, hospitals, pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies the health industry, when in reality these businesses are truly the sickness industry.

The wellness industry is products and services that promote wellness rather than respond to illness—this includes nutritional supplements, super foods and juices, personal trainers and “alternative care,” such as chiropractic.

The “New” Wellness Revolution

In the 1990s, I stumbled onto the wellness industry quite by accident. For 10 years (against medical advice) I had put off getting expensive knee surgery. Experiencing chronic pain, I began to take a supplement—glucosamine—and within a year the cartilage was repaired. My surgeon was amazed when he examined my X-rays; I no longer needed surgery.

I began to take a look at the true health and wellness products available—pure water, nutritional supplements, juices, pesticide- and hormone-free foods, anti-aging therapies and alternative medical care, to name just a few. I was stunned to learn that an industry that had barely existed a decade before was already a $200 billion business—and it was just getting started!

Who Is Interested in Wellness?

Is the wellness market serving a large enough segment of the population to be lucrative?

The Gen-Xers and Gen-Yers are definitely looking to improve their performance, and they represent a significant piece of this market. But the baby boomers are a huge part of it. This generation is no longer focused on remembering what it was like to be young—they’re buying things that actually make them young by achieving a healthier body, more acute senses and a sharper mind!

An Economic Revolution

The wellness industry has only just begun.

Most people don’t even know such wellness products exist—much less that they are legitimate solutions to age-old, old-age problems. But, as more learn about wellness, this sector of our economy will continue to explode.

Today’s wellness opportunities lie not only in the distribution of products, but even more so in the distribution of information—called intellectual distribution.

Intellectual Distribution: The Opportunity of the Decade

The big-box stores, so prevalent in this decade, provide an affordable way to purchase things we already know about and want.

In today’s self-checkout, cash-and-carry world, you will rarely find store employees well-informed about the products, or even able to recommend anything that hasn’t been heavily advertised in the media. These employees simply aren’t paid to be, and therefore aren’t trained to be, product experts.

While the Internet is a source of useful information, it can only give you information on products you ask about. It cannot tell you about something you don’t know to ask about.